Iceland 2015 Day 3 The Hangout with Gudmundur of the East

Today is an exciting day. Last week I won a trip to meet East Iceland with a promo give away from Inspired by Iceland. You could sign up for several 'hangouts' in 7 parts of Iceland. I just tried my luck and signed up, not knowing I was the only one who actualy won it. The other participants they just recruited from Háskol Íslands. So at 7 in the morning I met up with those students, our guide Maggi, a cameraman and a representative from Iceland promotions. I myself dont have a lot of photos relying on the guide and camera that captured it much better than I ever could. I will add them here once I have them.

We took a nice flight from Reykjavik to Egilstadir in the east, I had a windowseat and it was amazing to have a dream come true to once fly across Iceland, because my flight to Iceland usualy goes just along the south coast. Never so far experienced it to fly a bit more over Iceland itself, it rarely does. I was amazed by the size of Vatnajökull, its huge, and crossing over Bardarbunga and Holuhraun which was erupting last year amazed me. The country below looked so amazing, so rough, all those patterns in rocks and rivers, the colors totaly woow. I really want to go to the Highlands one time soon. But as a non-budget out of season solo traveler it is really something that stays a dream for a while. Probably....

Thats Bardarbunga

So many lakes here, unusual for me!

The flight took one hour before landing in sunny Egilstadir, while introducing ourselves properly our bus is arranged and we drive off to the first stop not much later. We instantly got fed with some breakfast sandwiches and drinks, but the ride only took five minutes or so :-) We visited the crafts and tourists information point and were welcomed by two ladies telling us all about East Iceland, offering us kleinur and milk and coffee during our quick visit. They had some nice arts on display that inspire a lot. Despite not buying anything or taking pictures, the information I got about this part of Iceland was very welcome. I somehow always felt an urge to go to Egilstadir, I still have no clue why, but now I have been here, my desire to return sure has been more ignited than ever. Seeing it is even so easy to get here by air, I am very tempted to include this part next year in my autumn trip to Iceland.

Then we continued to the biggest forest of Iceland, Hallormstadir. We went for a little walk to a beach where once were held festivals. It was a very small beach and still that would mean it was a big festival on Icelandic terms!

The for Icelandic terms  untypical views of the roads in Hallormstadir

Our next activity which we didnt know anything about, was to go 4x4 driving with quads/buggies. I dont know how they are often called in English! We had to share our vehicles, which made me a bit sad, because I was so tired I didnt want to risk anything to happen to the Chech guy with who I had to share my quad. So he drove both ways, but the way up hill was terrible to be passenger. Having no back to lean to, it was asking a lot of strength and balance to hold on to the grips right behind you. Only with crossing the rivers and steep hills I just 'hugged' my driver because that wasnt any comfort either but you would definitely fall off if you didnt. Going downhill was a lot more easier though.
I had respect for the cameraguy who filmed close to everything. But then again he had a more luxuary quad and had some back security.

After our one hour 4x4 adventure, we headed deeper into the canyon of Lagarfljót where the famous lake monster lives, the Icelandic Log Ness.

Lagarfljót

We didnt see the monster or traces of it, but it appears that everybody in this area knows a person who has seen it or thought has seen it. We on the other hand, went to the organic farm Modir Jörd, Mother Earth. One of Icelands largest organic vegetable farms. And it was a wonderfull place to hang out, such a good vibe there! We had a vegan lunch there with only vegetables from this place. But first we needed to do some tasks. Like I had to pick curly kale which we would use for lunch. A huge basket full, and it was also recorded on film, so I will see myself back in promo's of Icelandic organic farming I guess :-)

Then we had our lunch after others had to help preparing it. It was delicious, flavored cooked broccoli, a 5 leaf salad with edible flowers, Icelandic red potatoes, potato salad, fried turnips and home made delicous barley burgers. All the others were surprised that 'grazing' could be so delicious. In Iceland they say you are grazing if you eat vegetarian, because not long ago all veggies could get was some lettuce topped with tomatos and a bit of cucumber. But since Iceland is able to produce much more vegetables itself, so came the wave of vegetarian and vegan food, and trust me in Reykjavik you can eat very good quality vegetarian/vegan. Outside Reykjavik it gets more difficult but I notice more and more hotels & restaurants serve good quality meat free dishes.

Part of our vegan lunch

They sell their products here too!

A green house to be jealous of!

This could be anywhere but it remains a feel good surrounding

After our lunch it was moving on to our next stop. But first we would walk a bit of the monstertrail that the owner of the organic farm had created. Its more made for kids but we enjoyed this walk anyway because the weather was still so amazing and great to be outdoors.
Then Maggi surprised me slightly with the question who wants to go riding horses. I already had that idea because I looked up the place we would stay and they were passionate horse lovers. So I already had that wish for a chance to ride horses. And so we did. But only me and Gudmundur of the East could ride horses, all others never had been on a horse at all. Though all brave enough to do it!

So we drove on for a longer ride to the Wilderness Center deep into the valley. For what I read it must be a wonderfull place. Very authentic, getting you back to the Icelandic life from long ago.
On our way we caught up with 2 reindeer which made our day of course, because chances were not very big we would see them. They are coming down now from the mountains because of wintertime, but it would be a bit too early to see lots of them. But we were happy to find two on the side of the road even!

A few minutes later we came across a herd of horses and for some reason we stopped there. I had the idea this were 'our' horses, but nowhere close was a farm really. We took photo's of them, petted some and drove on for another few minutes before arriving at the Wilderness Center. We were quickly put at work, because our horses needed to be herded from their meadow. And it was the herd we just stopped by. I was the only one brave enough to get the herd on the move while following the owner on her horse bareback. They all followed and within a few minutes the herd was inside the enclosure which had a curious building in it. A turfhouse.

We gathered there too, and this turfhouse was a smoke house. The people here smoke their own lambmeat and trout here. And we got to taste some of it. Along with some homemade rhubarb wine. After this short snack break we got our horses, I got a chestnut one named Hnekkur I think. I really am not master into writing down spoken Icelandic! Sorry if I insult the horse calling him asshole in Icelandic or something.

We saddled our horses and once everybody was ready we rode off, leaving all the beginners behind rather quickly. Some had troubles keeping up, the usual thing, but I rode off with Gudmundur and 2 who were not afraid to ride, while our guide the owner took care of the beginners. It is amazing how he apparently trusted us to go on alone. My horse was wonderfull, it could not compare to yesterdays Roskur but I enjoyed it every second.
When we reached the box crossing we had a break and got a beer. So Icelandic :-) I didnt really feel ok to cross the river in this box, I had no idea either how to get in or out anyway, so I stayed on this side. And checked out the ruin of an abandoned house. From the front it looked all nice and ok, thought I could move in instantly but inside and in de back I realised it would probably be very cold in wintertime, as mother Earth did a good job getting access to the house. But in general I liked its lay out, with a sort of stable in the house too. And a waterfall in the backyard. Not at all unimportantish you know :-)

Getting our beer hauled in!

My horse Hnekkur

Leader of the pack!

On the way back two girls decided to not ride their horses back but go by car. The owner took the 2 horses on lead, which caused him troubles a bit. I offered to take one with me, I am not unexperienced with having a hand horse with me. But didnt need to. In Iceland it is common to ride that way, they even have special equipment for it to 'tie' the horse or horses to your horse or saddle so you have your hands free. Because of the herd instinct horses wont be like 'I stop and wont go', like is so common if you try to lead another horsebreed this way. Most of the time you can even have an Icelandic Horse loose running along with you. But the guide struggled along with his two hand horses and another ridden horse that became a bit stubborn. And we 4 just rode on in a nice speed back home. We tried to turn around or wait for the others but it made no sense. The others were so 'slow' we just rode on back home.

Back at the stable we got our predinner after we took care of the horses and took our places in the attic where we would sleep on a dormitory room. I am no fan of that, but at this place its kind of awesome. It is made in traditional turfhouse way, with sleeping'boxes' and 2 closetbeds. The beds were very comfy and big, I really ran away with the idea to ever made such bed for myself once I have a new house. It gives a very secure and comfy feeling to sleep in such enclosed space. Our beds here had bedwarmers too, since they didnt want to have heating visible. And at first I thought we had no electricity too, but the sockets were made invisible behind a wooden pane. Even the lights were choosen to look like flames including the flickering. Amazing...

The attic we slept at

The predinner was traditional Icelandic, with smoked salmon, pancakes, Icelandic pies, coffee, tea, hotchocolate and lots of other goodies. Since we thought dinner would follow, none of us ate a lot to save space in our stomachs. But then they told us we had a surprise in store. We had to go to the attic and put all our stuff out of sight because at 20.00 some people would come over to the attic. We had no idea why people would come to the attic anyway, but we put our stuff away. And then at 19.30 some age old people came upstairs started to play the piano and we were like, what is this???

Then at 20.00 a lot, I mean really a lot of people came to the attic and came sit on our beds. Like everybody from the valley came here together, young and old. And so we were witnessing real Icelandic culture first hand. This was one of the often spontanious sing along nights which almost everybody around would attent. Singing old and new Icelandic songs, from sagas, from artists from folklore... I even saw Ásgeirs music in the lyric book. But we had great fun to learn A Sprengisadur. Which I already knew, but with round up version lyrics. Especially for us they also added some English music. A lot of beer was passed too, many people were slightly drunk. At 22.00 we finally went downstairs to get our dinner, which was delicious, couldnt say anything less. So much salmon we couldnt even eat it all. And after our dinner we had our preparty until deep in the night with beer games and we had so unbelievable lots of fun with the '15' game! Even if I was so tired after so much lack of sleep previous days... I guess we continued until deep in the night. And yet I didnt sleep very well because of the noises from other people. I would probably crash tomorrow, hoping to arrive early in Snæfellsnes and snooze the day off!